


'I know looks can kill, because I'm dying for yours'

by Forbiddenmichael



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Bully Michael, Clemmings, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Fetus!5SOS, High School, I will add tags as I go along, Love Confessions, M/M, Muke - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sad Luke, Shy Luke, Shy Michael, Soccer Player Calum, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, To begin with, again to begin with, and then what happens when they get older, ashtons not here at the end but he will show up eventually, but not an au, but only mentioned a little, except with more muke, follows the way they met kind of, michaels hair colour kinda plays a big part, starts of when they are young, to begin with anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5292095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forbiddenmichael/pseuds/Forbiddenmichael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how with the change of the pigment of Michael's hair, comes a change in Luke's attitude towards him. The mere colour of it isn't what causes the change in emotions, it just easier to think about how much has actually changed, when you compare it to something as trivial as the colour of his hair. <br/>It all starts when they are merely innocent five year olds, but by the time they are eighteen, many things -including hair dye preferences- have changed. </p><p>or luke finds his feelings towards michael changing as often as the colour of michaels hair does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brown

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody! (we don't have to live this way, im sorry :))) )   
> so this idea has been going around in my head for a while, and its taken some time to get to where it is now. its gonna be long (o estimated around 17 chapters) , so I hope your prepared for that, but Im kinda looking forward to this one. I plan to keep this really happy, and angst free cos honestly I have enough angst in my life  
> essentially the timeline of michaels hair colours is the series of what his hair actually went in, but to fit the fic I havnt done the correct timings, so just roll with it.   
> I plan to hopefully update every other day, and some days youll be lucky with longer updates than others. so look out for those.
> 
> this first chapter is boring but it will get better I swear !! stick with me on this one 
> 
> lovely comments are very welcome, and please leave kudos?? ty 
> 
> ((title is from way to live by small town heroes, and if you haven't listened to them and like 5sos and atl I stronglyyyyy recommend them, bcos they are flipping brilliant. okay okay))

When Michael’s hair was brown, Luke didn’t even know his name was Michael. 

* * * 

At the age of five, Luke started school at Pine-Wood Primary School in Year One, he had no friends or any real aspirations for what he planned to achieve at school, but then again, what five year old did really. On his first day dressed in his charcoal grey school trousers – they were slightly too long as his mum had insisted on buying a size to big, so they would last him a couple of years, and they bunched around his ankles- a white polo shirt with a stiff collar and the red school logo on the right breast pocket, an almost luminous red school jumper- again a size to big so the sleeves hung past his hands – which he knew would fade to the muddy burgundy colour of the ‘older boys’ jumpers as it was repeatedly washed, and overly polished black school shoes. 

He didn’t have any butterflies in his stomach, or jittering in his hands. The only emotion was the slight nagging at the back of his head saying what happened if none of the other boys liked him or didn’t want to share his ninja turtle figures with them, but he pushed it away. Having older brothers who brawled and bickered and picked at each other’s weaknesses had at least taught the young Luke, that you lock away any signs of inner turmoil, just on the off chances that it becomes outer turmoil. 

His mum walked him the short way from the family car which she had parked on the road adjacent, to the paint-pealing gates of the school. She stood there, glancing down at her pale faced son, as his faced turned waxy at the daunting sight of the school. A large school building was in the middle of an even larger enclosed area, it was one story building but never the less to a five year old it looked as big as a skyscraper. The building had had additions added to it over the years, and the long rectangular of the main school had extra buildings made of differing colour bricks attached to it. A glass roofed room was at the front, with finger paintings and children’s masks hanging from washing lines visible through the large window facing outwards. Another building was attached on the right side made of sandy coloured brick, the exterior gave no indication of what lay inside. Following on from the sandy building, stretching out quite an extra distance to the right and across the entire width of the school, was a green playing field. There were no children on the grass and mud of the field. All the children were rushing around head first around a large expanse of concrete at the front of the school, it was the part closes to the fence by which the gate that Luke and his mum were standing. It was the ‘playground’, fully equipped with skipping ropes and the multi-coloured floor markings. It was a source of a huge amount of noise from the children and Luke had to fight not to cower into his mums side to hide from it all. A fence ran around the entire school premise which was bordered by dense undergrowth. 

But when his mum bent down, crouched close to the floor to sweep Luke’s long fringe from his eyes, kissing his forehead, Luke blocked out the sinking feeling that his mum was actually leaving him. He would be alone in this little playground, surrounded by other children he didn’t know, and didn’t know if he wanted to get to know. Some of them were playing football, using their brand new jumpers as goal posts. Some were using the yellow markings on the floor to play hopscotch and leap frog. And Luke really didn’t want to have to leave his mums side, to be forced to metaphorically let go of his mums hand – God, he didn’t actually hold his mums hand. Only when the wind was so fierce outside that is whipped around the house, pushing through the cracks in the sides of the window panes and making whistling and howling noises as it did. When the house seemed to be wolf calling to him was the only time he ever held his mums hand, even against the jeers of his brothers. (It wasn’t the only time really). 

There were about 30 or so other children and each of them looked just as daunting as the next. Whether they had pigtails tied with red bobbles to match the school colours, or hair that had been perfectly groomed before the child left the house but had now turned unruly. Whether they were wearing grey pinafore skirts with white ankle socks, or the same grey trousers as him – some with holes already in the knees. 

He set a hard face. Straightening his lips into a soft line to hide the quivering of his bottom lip at what a daunting task this was to the little boy. He pushed his long muddy-blonde fringe from his forehead from where it had been blocking his vision. His clear blue eyes looked past his mother’s head, back to where the noisy five year olds were playing football on the opposite side of the playground. The sunlight from above framed the boy’s eyes, lighting his eyelashes in a glow of twinkling sparkles, and he squinted against the light. He kept his head high, his hands strictly by his sides- the red book bag he was holding in one, heavy with new stationary and white, blank paged books- and back straight.

“I’m going to go and find some friends now, Mum” he had said, not noticing the wetness in his mums eyes, or the red that ringed them, as she nodded. Luke had walked towards the football boys after his mum had kissed him lightly on the head, she had breathed in the strawberry scent of his flat hair which remained after she had washed out his shampoo the night before. He turned and waved once, letting a small, and what he thought reassuring smile spreed across his face, to accompany the little goodbye. Then before Luke could run back and asked to be taken home, and before his mum could let him be taken back, she left for the car. 

He continued to walk in the direction of the football game, but that had never been his destination in the first place. Walking past the messily organised match –mostly consisting of shouting and kicking the ball large distances up and down the pitch- Luke found a small unattended patch of concrete that no one else had claimed for their own entertainment. He sat down there, careful not to scuff his new shoes or trousers on the floor, and placed his book bag next to him. Whilst he was opening the little red bag to retrieve a hand sized, plastic, ninja turtle figurine along with a pocket sized wooden penguin, he spotted to boys sitting similarly to him across the playground. 

They were sat on their calves, and leaning forward, messing with something on the ground in front of them. Facing each other, the game they were playing on the ground had enthralled them and it looked as if the other was the only person even there in the other persons mind. They paid no one else any attention as they lent closer to each other every now and then to whisper dirty secrets and share conspiracies. Neither of them were wearing their school jumpers. 

One had skinny looking arms wrapped with dark skin; he had short dark brown hair, and from what Luke could see equally dark eyes. He had a happy face with large cheekbones, and when he laughed at one of the jokes the other made, he threw his head back, scrunched up his eyes, and his blindly white teeth were on show. 

The other boy was something different entirely. He still had the skinny arms, but this time with ghostly pale skin, it looked nearly translucent when it was caught by the rays of the sun. His hair was a lighter shade to the tanned boy sitting opposite him, and it was cut in a similar style to Luke’s own with a long fringe that obscured half his face. Luke couldn’t see the colour of his eyes from where he was sitting, but he recond they were probably bright and held something inquisitive within their depths. Whenever something in the game they played between them confused him, his bushy eyebrows would tug together into a line above his eyes and a puzzled look would cross his face, until it relaxed again. He had bright red lips and when they broke into a smile, Luke wanted to ask what had made him do that, and he wondered if he could be the reason for a few of them. 

Luke sat on the floor, across from the two boys and watched as their friendship seamed to crackle between them in the air. He made no friends that day, or the next, or the next at school, just happy to sit and play with his figures on his own. But from watching the two boys, he learnt what friendship was, and he learnt how much he craved that type of relationship where the connection was palpable between him and them. He wanted a friend, or maybe if he was lucky friends, but most of all he wanted to be friends with the tanned and pale boy, who talked to no one else but each other. 

* * * 

And then Michael’s hair was Blonde.


	2. Blonde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair was blonde, Luke and Michael didn’t talk. (But Calum smiled at him once.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, but ive been really lacking in time and any motivation at all. 
> 
> hope you like this !!   
> kudos/comment/bookmark if you did and are actuaully excited for the next parts :)

When Michael’s hair was blonde, Luke and Michael didn’t talk. (But Calum smiled at him once.)

* * * 

With the turning of the calendar that brought Luke’s birthday, and with each number that was added to his age, the amount of friends Luke had stayed at a strong, positive and consistent zero. He’d never had anyone to share his Mutant Ninja Turtle figures with, and later on, no one to recommend a new band he had found to. When Luke had hit secondary school, a whole new world inside his head was found within the help of tiny white headphones, that had come with his completely new, top-of-the-range iPod which he had lusted after for months. He didn’t need to borrow his brothers Walkman anymore, and the freedom and individuality he could now have was liberating. This world of new and exciting sounds that he found himself living and breathing and existing in was full of guitar riffs and heavy drumming, and it drowned out the silence that seemed to follow him down school corridors and around his house, the silence clung to him like a curse before music. The silence was more deafening than the cold and unforgiving silence that came with the end of school. He never volunteered answers in class, even though most of the time he knew them- this was proven when the teachers did pick on him, expecting some dumb-witted answer, or some confession of him not paying attention, and he actually replied with the correct answer- and never, ever, voluntarily spoke to anyone. It wasn’t like they spoke to him anyway either. 

To Luke, this was just how it was. It didn’t feel odd, or feel like isolation, because he had never know any different. It was quiet and dull and boring, and he felt lonely, but isolation would be a life with nothing. Luke had his music. He had screaming solos and shredding guitars and hair-raising, heart-thumping baselines. Without that he would have nothing, nothing to drive away the demons of why no one talked to him as he sat in his room, legs hugged to his chest, plunged in darkness. The boy with blonde hair, sad but beautiful clear blue eyes, had his lifeline, the thing that was pumping the blood through his veins, and as long as he had that he was okay. Luke was doing okay. 

* * * 

By the time Luke had progressed all the way through primary school, and up and onwards to Secondary school, his opinion on the boys he had seen sitting on the gravel playing games had changed, to say the least. 

-

Living in his own bubble of isolation, he was able to simply sit back and watch. Because no one paid him any attention, more often than not, people just completely forgot he was there. If they were put in groups with him for projects, they would count one less person, if a group of jabbering girls walked past him in the hallway, they wouldn’t try to quell the noise in case he heard the gossip, because they didn’t even realise he was there. And the problem was that they didn’t even do it on purpose. They weren’t doing it to spite him, or subconsciously brush him off, he was just invisible. Like something not really there, not completely tangible or real. Luke was like the thinnest of smoke slipping through your fingers, or a clear gas that you could only smell a hint of in the air. A ghost. Pale and unassuming and only just there. 

* * * 

He progressed that way up until around his second term of Year Nine. For the last eight years- from the ages of six to fourteen- the longest conversation he had had with anyone within a school building or on the school campus was with a teacher explaining why he was late to school. (Jack had only just past his driving test at the time, and had proceeded to stall the car a total of six times during the fifteen minute drive to school. Needless to say, it would have been quicker and probably less stressful if he had walked the half an hour route on foot like he normally did.)

Luke’s world momentarily fell apart when he lost his beloved iPod at the beginning of Year Nine. The tears in his eyes, could have been the cause of the tightening in his throat, or it could have been the fact he had been able to string more than three sentences together with someone who wasn’t his Mum, Dad, Jack or Ben. But mainly it was the absence of the heavy weight of metal and glass in his pocket, and the lack of white headphones trailing from one ear to said pocket. When Luke was given the iPod for his thirteenth birthday, he had quickly become completely dependent on it and the peace it gave his mind when noise filled it from the small speakers. From when he got up in the morning, to when he fell into bed the next night, he remained with the headphones in his ears, and didn’t take them out. Not in class (the teachers hardly noticed him either, and not nearly enough to see the white cord against his dark blue school jumper), or at lunch (he plugged two headphones in then, to block out the bitching of the girls and the jeering of the boys), or when he got home from school (he did have to take them out for dinner though.). 

So for the hour which he had lost it, Luke felt like he had had his life source ripped from his hands. 

His iPod was handed in later that day much to Luke relief, Blink-182’s I Miss You, paused half way. The secretary at the desk told him it had been handed by a tanned boy, with a friend that had blonde hair. She had assumed they were his friends, and expected Luke to provide their names. He didn’t, and Luke hated, absolutely loathed, the flicker of pity that sparked in her watery grey eyes. 

-

The next day a tanned boy, accompanied by a boy with blonde hair- he had stood behind Calum, not really hiding from Luke, but not wanting to have anything to do with the encounter (Luke couldn’t even see the boy’s face properly, only shocking blonde hair)-, had smiled at him. Dropping a low, “I love Blink, too” in a gruff but also smooth voice, when Luke was collecting his books for his next lesson, before strolling off in the opposite direction. His name was Calum Hood, and Luke had watched as he slowly lost his childishly chubby cheeks, and had slowly started to develop high cheekbones. There was still a lot of time left, but Luke saw the beginnings of a strong jawline hidden by the current softness of his skin. Girls liked him, he was nice, Luke thought. 

He’d been shocked for a moment, standing rigid at his locker, textbooks hanging just above the back pack he was about to place them in because someone had voluntarily spoken to him. Luke had had no idea what he was talking about for a good minute which he had stood rooted to the spot, before his mind flashed back to the encounter with his iPod the day before. He and his friend with the (obviously) dyed hair had handed in his iPod, and Calum had happened to see what was on the screen at the time. Calum and his friend were halfway down the corridor before Luke composed himself and turned around.

It was then that reality came back to him. The gaunt of the blonde haired friend, was strikingly familiar, as well as the rhythm that slapped along the floor when both boys walked. They’d walked these same corridors for three years, and many more together before that, so the way they walked side by side fell into some sort of repetitive rhythm with each other. The sounds of their footsteps making the same noise now that they had done when they were children walking the halls of Pine-Wood Primary. This was Calum Hood he had been talking to- talking to being a brief term. 

The Calum, who had just talked to him, was the same Calum that he had seen playing back in primary school. Luke knew this. And he knew that Calum’s best friend was Michael Clifford. They had always been glued to each other like magnets, never one without the other, and it must have been a short-circuit in Luke’s brain due to the fact someone was talking to him, let alone Calum from CalumandMichael for these facts to only filter into his mind now.   
Since Year One, Luke had been entranced by the two boys. Watching them change into this somewhat power duo they were now. How they both changed and adapted but stuck together. It was envious, a friendship so fiercely strong and loyal, and Luke still yearned for something that they had. 

Observing the way they boys acted around each other gave Luke a sense of what friendship was like, so whenever he got the chance to watch their interactions, he took the opportunity with both hands. So, when Michael bleached his hair from the light chocolaty brown, to this whitey blonde, Luke noticed straight away. Everyone did so it wasn’t like he was anything special, it was kind of hard not to notice, but normally he didn’t pay attention to things as fickle as hair colour, why should he when it wasn’t like anyone cared about his opinion, but it had struck a chord within Luke. 

The lightness of it had brought out how pale Michaels skin was. His paleness was only emphasised when compared to his hair, because his skin was even paler than it. The red of his lips stood out against the canvas of almost all white, the green of his eyes popped and shone, like a green serpent with the way they narrowed when people got too close to him and Calum. All the colours of him, his emerald eyes, ruby lips, or onyx coloured eyelashes stood out more, more vibrant, more noticeable, more stunning and breath-taking. Luke was met with an overwhelming feeling of something he didn’t understand when he saw Michael for the first time with blonde hair. The other boy was so whole, consummate and complete that Luke craved attention, let alone some of the affection that he and Calum shared. 

Luke wanted to get to know them. The both of them. But he also wanted to know what made Michael tick, what he did outside of school, what he listened to through his headphones, what his opinions and views and secrets were. He wanted to know this about Calum too, but there was something about the way Michaels green eyes were so stark compared to his pale face and how they seemed to hold Luke pinned in place when they swung over him, even if the boy wasn’t even looking at him. 

Michael whipped his head round from where he was walking next to Calum, his stride not faultering. He narrowed his eyes at Luke. The squint mistakable for him looking in the direction of the sun with how subtle it was. (He wasn’t looking back at Luke and into the sun because the sun was streaming in from a window next to the green eyed boy further down the corridor. It glinted and reflected of his hair like little sequins, casting glints of light back to Luke. It made him look ethereal, with a golden halo, vibrant eyes and deep lips. It knocked the breath from Luke’s lungs and he exhaled loudly.). The look in Michael’s eyes was a warning, dark and menacing, casting his eyes into dark shadows. He looked angry, and his expression screamed ‘Stay away from us, freak’ with the hint of a threat. 

And then he turned his head back around and disappeared into the dense pack of students hurrying to their next lessons.

Luke understood Michael message well and clear; don’t think because Calum speaks to you once, that it means that, he or more obviously we, want to talk to you. He understood and it hurt, but it wasn’t a new to feel like a rock was sitting low in his stomach making him feel heavy and too full with a lack of emotions. He wouldn’t speak to them, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t entertain the idea of being the cause of a mischievous or happy glint in brown or more importantly green eyes. 

They didn’t talk, not once. 

* * * 

Then, Michael’s hair was brown, again.


	3. Dark Brown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair was dark brown, he began to speak to Luke- just not in the way Luke had initially hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I have two things to apologise for, 1. I said this would be up Friday/sate day, and well it Sunday today so oops, 2. I said there would be no angst, and well, theres a shit tone of angst. vv. sorry but I think it kinda works for the story. 
> 
> theres use of like two cuss words in this, but that's it. and just a shit tone of mild/not so mild angst.
> 
> also luckily for you people ive had my phone taken off me so seeing as I will have nothing better to do I will be writing more so you will probably have more updates more often. watch out for the next part as I have a lot planned and its gonna be hella long :)) 
> 
> hope you like this ?! :*

When Michael’s hair was dark brown, he began to speak to Luke- just not in the way Luke had initially hoped. 

* * * 

The final term of Year Nine flew by after the incident with Luke’s iPod, and ended in a flurry of burning textbooks and shredding papers, as he and his fellow students banished the notes for the subjects they wouldn’t be studying the next year into oblivion. Year Ten bought subjects they had actually chosen to do, so who cared for stacks of paper with no purpose. Many of Luke’s classmates held bonfires that summer, setting alight the meticulously made notes in blue or black biro, doing dances and chants of happiness as they circled the burning remains. It was the end, and for a while it was the end of everything they didn’t want and the coming of something new and different. The glorious sound of tearing paper mingled with raucous shouts as the final bell of the final lesson on the final day rang out through the halls of the school. A stampede of noise and charging teenagers soon swarmed the corridors, all heading in one direction- summer.

People flung textbooks in the bins around the campus, throwing away all their responsibilities for the next month and a half with them. It was summer, so, as accurately put as anyone could say, ‘who the hell cared’. Groups met outside the school gates, bags significantly lighter, hearts lighter and soaring without the burden of school and classes and homework hanging over them. Luke walked home alone, bag at the same weight, with what felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Luke saw no one that holiday. He listened to his music, building and building up his collection of songs that he could recite by heart. The noise of the songs filled his own head with more happiness than a mumbled conversation he could have with someone who happened to actually recognise him from school could. He worked on his guitar playing, strumming and plucking till his fingers bled. There were still speckles of blood left on the metal of the frets; it showed he had worked himself to the bone. Literally and metaphorically stripped himself back to his bones as he bared all when playing. He was most open then, not hiding behind a long fringe within his own little bubble. He painted everything for everyone to see, completely uncensored as he splashed his own colour into his own life, adding specks of vibrancy behind his eyes.

Everything looked grey to Luke nowadays, dreary and dull and void of anything as exciting as colour. Nothing was exciting anymore, like someone had got a vacuum, and no matter how cliché it sounded, sucked all the fun out of everything. 

But spots of colour flashed sometimes. When his calloused and red raw fingers pressed into the stiff strings of his guitar. When he allowed himself the small pleasure of singing the words which swarmed in his head, breaching the barrier between his mouth and mind and letting the lyrics erupt in the room, to accompany the hum of the guitar. When he caught the glimpse of white teeth bared into a cheeky grin whilst in the corridors of school- he would probably get the same feeling if someone actually paid attention to him, but the only one who did was Calum when he shot him these little smiles, so, - before the smile was replaced by a terrifying glower from a blonde haired, pale skinned boy, a glower that made Luke physically shrink in on himself. 

It wasn’t enough colour. Not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was all Luke had. He grasped onto these little reprises, the little abnormal in the mundane, not risking them fluttering away from his palms like the hope he could be friends with Calum had. The hope he had felt when Calum told him he liked blink too had long since drained like thick blood from his body, leaving his longing for anyone at all to care more about him than whether he had a pencil they could borrow, strong and pulsating. 

Smoke curled around the moon in the sky, the ashy remains of paper burnt by people who would never give Luke a chance. He sat on the floor of his room, surrounded by his own work. The pages lay torn, strewn everywhere. When Luke had torn them up, he had hoped to feel something. Some sense of elation and freedom, but he only felt the ever present fog in the depths of his mind, the constricting of his chest, as if someone was sitting on it while they had a hand wrapped around his throat, and an overwhelming urge to cry. He did. The salty water leaving tracks down his pale face, dripping onto the papers around him. His music pounded in his ears, however for this first time in many, many years it didn’t sooth the pounding and aching and longing. He stared at the moon, the smoke that billowed in front of it, and tears fell from his eyes. He didn’t make a sound. 

* * * 

On the first day of Year 10, Luke and his classmates were all given lockers. Whilst traversing from the lower school, up to the GCSE years it meant that chunky and cumbersome folders overtook the much preferred, slim and easily moveable work books. Seeing as the folders became thick and heavy, it was nearly impossible to carry even one in a school bag, so accordingly the backpacks got smaller and the lockers became ever more important. Going to and from lockers before a lesson was essential, unless you wanted to end up with dead arms from carting around so much paper and cardboard. 

However Luke would have taken the dead arms any day over what happened almost every time he went to his locker. 

-

Walking into school on the first day back after summer, Death Valley by Fall Out Boy blocking out the noise of long greetings of air kisses and ‘bro-hugs’ from students who hadn’t seen each other over the holidays, Luke felt the dread coiling in his stomach. The feeling had simmered down a bit over the summer, the hatred for these four walls and 80% of its population had been dampened under a blanket of time, but now it came back in full force. Luke turned his music up louder. 

There was a large pin board directly to the left of the front doors to the school, where students and staff could pin up notices and other school related things, and Luke walked towards it. Last year’s football team list- Luke spotted Calum’s name in bold at the top, he’d won the captaincy again last year- among other sports team lists, a tally of votes for venues for the Year Eleven prom, and many notices for clubs and out of school help lessons, were pinned up on the green felt with varying coloured pins. What Luke was looking for was the A3 sheet of paper directly in the middle of the board telling all the new students who their new teachers were, which classroom they had registration in, and which block their locker was in- their forms and therefore classmates had been the same since Year Seven. 

Luke stood by the board, foot tapping on the floor as he found his name and all the corresponding information. Luke Hemmings, Mrs Logan, Room 24, Maths Block S. Committing the information to memory, he walked away from the board and down the long hallway towards the maths block. The hallway was lined by tall blue lockers, and wooden doors leading to classrooms. Other younger students were leaning against the lockers, slouched and complaining about their new teachers. The lockers they had were smaller than the ones the Year Tens and Elevens were given, and these ones were blue instead of red. Luke’s school shoes squeaked along the linoleum floors, but no one even looked up to given him a second glance. 

He rounded the corner into the Maths Block just as the song ended with a crescendo of drums, and when the music stopped to go onto the next song, it felt like his heart had stopped too. 

Half way down the corridor on the right hand side, removing folders and textbooks from his locker was Calum, and leaning on the locker to the left of him was a very very dark haired Michael. There were other students standing similarly but it was like the two boys had been put under a microscope and everything else was obscured from Luke’s vision. Hemmings and Hood had always followed each other in the register, and last year after Michaels warning to stay away, Luke had thought it would be a problem that their lockers were also following the register order and were next to each other. However fortunately for Luke, Calum scarcely ever went to his locker, and only did when retrieving his football kit for after school practice, so they rarely crossed paths. With a sinking feeling, Luke knew that this year that wouldn’t be the case and that there would be many an alteration with a now dark brown haired boy. 

He approached what he knew was his locker, and only when he was a few feet away did the two brown haired boys see him. Calum looked up from the inside of his locker, alerted by the noise that was escaping Luke’s headphones as he pulled them out of his ears, and Michael only turned his head to look at him when he saw Calum shoot him a smile. Calum hadn’t changed one bit over the summer, he still had the sparkling brown eyes, a mixture of honey and chocolate and all things sweet, the squishy cheekbones battling for dominance with a strong jawline, pink lips contrasting with straight white teeth. He was the same height, and had the same school backpack. Even the looseness in which he wore his tie and his fluffy hair was the same. 

Michael, however, was a different story. Before the summer Michael’s hair had been blonde, highlighting the intense green of his eyes and the dark red of his lips with its paleness. But now that Michael’s hair was even darker than before he started to dye it, Luke was transfixed. It was dark, really dark, a brown verging on the precipice of black, similar to the pigment of Calum’s own hair. It was styled as it always was, soft peaks and spikes with a small swooping fringe to the left, but that wasn’t what took Luke’s breath away. It was so dark that his skin actually looked white, like rare porcelain, blemish free and flawless. It made his eyes pop with so much colour that it was dizzying, the green so vivid and captivating Luke felt like he was drowning. His eye brows didn’t stand out like they had done when he had blonde hair and his eyelashes looked darker and longer. Michael’s lips even looked darker, if that was possible, not just a red, but almost holding the depth of a stain from forest berries. White teeth became visible against the red when he spoke, a snarl to the tone. 

“Yes?” he spoke. The sound of his voice, lower and more gravelly than last year, didn’t snap Luke out of his staring. Michael had grown since Luke had last seen him, even though he was leaning against the locker, he could tell by his stance. His shoulders looked broader, - Luke’s still being as narrow as the next person- and his legs longer - there were even girls in his class taller than Luke. Flicking his eyes back up to Michael’s woke Luke up, the fire in the green pupils almost scolding. 

“Your hair,” Luke all but whispered, a rasp to his voice from terror or awe he didn’t know. “It’s really dark.” All thoughts other than what his hair would feel like under his fingers and how Michael’s eyes would feel on him when they held the same soft, and almost fond quality that he looked at Calum with, trained on him. Luke’s knees felt weak, but he knew now that it was with fear as Luke had forgotten Michael’s pure hatred of him. He’d forgotten he wasn’t even allowed to glance in Michaels direction, let alone talk to him.

The fire in Michael’s eyes fizzled out and was replaced by a hard dull look. It reminded Luke of a steel barrier, cold and unmoving, hell bent on not giving anything away. “No shit Sherlock”. Michael’s tone was emotionless- like his bored eyes- even though the statement dripped sarcasm. 

“Michael!” Calum tried to chastises. Michael didn’t bat an eyelid. Calum had remained a bystander to the intense staring between the two boys, wordlessly watching the exchange. But he must have seen the settling of the tension in Michael’s shoulders, when Luke didn’t tell them what he was actually there for. 

“Shut up, Cal” he muttered, not even turning to face him and remained turned towards Luke. “Did you want something, or?” 

“Um,” he stuttered, the effect of being under Michael’s strong glare rendering him a stuttering mess, unsure what to say and how. He then motioned behind Michael’s head to his locker “You, um- You’re…”. Calum seemed to catch on quicker than Michael did, the realisation sparking in his eyes, Michael misinterpreted completely. 

“Yes, my hair is brown! And quite frankly it’s got nothing to do with you!” To Michael the hand gesture had been motioning to the colour of his hair, and not the label with Luke’s name on at the top of the locker. 

“I just- just needed to…”. His headphones hung limply from his fingers, his playlist had finished and the music had stopped playing. It was as if silence had fallen, that Michael’s shouts had bought a hush on the school, when in reality, only a few people had merely glanced in their direction. Michael’s jaw set into harsh line. 

“No, do you know what you need to do, Luke?” the fire was back in Michael’s eyes, and even if it was the wrong type of emotion, Luke was proud of the fact he had evoked such a strong feeling in Michael. Even if it was completely negative. 

“Michael…” Calum warned, reaching out to touch his arm to tether him to reality before he exploded. Michael pushed his hand away with his forearm. 

“You need to stay the fuck away from me and my friends. You’re a loser Luke, a freak. I don’t know what you want, and to be honest I don’t care. Just stay away from me. Got it?” Venom and malice dripped from his words like poison. It was like acid, acid flowing through Luke’s veins, burning a path for itself, singeing his heart and stabbing at his eyes. His throat and eyes burned and tears blocked his vision. 

“O-okay” he managed to speak out over the lump in his throat. It came out as a choked cry, a sob of pain, and he didn’t even have time to think about how he was crying in school, let alone in front of Michael Clifford. 

Tears streamed down his face, cut off cries escaped his throat, his chest heaved, air escaped his nose in huge quantities, and he ran as fast as he could, down the corridor of the Maths block, round the corner, and out the front doors to the main school. The cold morning air stung his salty face, but he didn’t care as his feet made a rhythmic slap, slap, slap, on the tarmac as he ran. His headphone trailed from his pocket, but the repetitive noise of his feet on the pavement was music to his ears as it drowned out the screams he felt building up inside him. 

-

“He was trying to get to his locker, you complete and utter arsehole” Anger was clear as crystal in Calum’s voice. It was strong and even Michael knew just how upset Calum was with him. 

“Oh”. 

Luke was halfway home by now, his feet thumping across the pavement as his school bag bounced on his back, so he didn’t see the sadness build in green eyes, and the negative pull of Michael’s lips. He didn’t see the downwards slant of Michael’s shoulders for the rest of the day, or the ‘Sorry’ that sat on his tongue for the next time they met. He only saw the blurriness of cars racing by as he ran and the disappointed look on his mums face when he raced to his room to throw himself on his bed, before the first lesson of the year at school had even started. 

* * * 

Then Michael’s hair was black.


	4. Black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so idek what this is. meaning im gonna apologise in advance.
> 
> this has been bugging me for ages and ive needed to update so I kinda went a bit stupid last night and well this happens, I don't actually know if it makes any sense but I kinda love invisible and thought if I posted this it would get be back into writing again.
> 
> so yay finally an actually update of this. I swear its gonna get happier soon.
> 
> anyway I haven't proof read this through yet, so ignore all the mistakes I just wanted to post.
> 
> okay im done, enjoy!!!

When Michael’s hair was Black, Luke felt like his whole world was tumbling around his due to lack of relevance. 

* * * 

Luke didn’t go into school for the rest of the week. He stayed at home, and tried to bury the memory of how pink the tips of Michael’s ears went when he started to curse Luke out. He buried the feeling of slight- minute- elation he had felt when Calum had tried to butt into Michael’s spiel. He banished the idea of people seeing his tear streaked face zoom past them in the corridor as he shot home. And he focused on the fact that at least for a few days, he could reside within the four walls of his bedroom, where nothing- not even his own thoughts if he didn’t want them to- could get to him.  
He lied to his mum for the first few days, saying he had a severe form of some wishy-washy illness, that they both knew didn’t even sound believable. But by Wednesday, his mum was ready to heave him out of bed herself. From then until Friday, Luke got up, got dressed, and pretended to head out to school. But as soon as his mum’s car pulled out of the driveway, when she was on her way to work, he would let himself into the house and crawl back into his bed. 

The school called once or twice, and he let the house phone ring through. They’d email a few minutes later, asking why Luke was off school, to which Luke would reply to from his mums laptop before deleting both the reply and the initial email from the school.

By Sunday evening, after having all the time in the world to sit in the serine of his room when there wasn’t a soul who may/may not turn up un-announced, Luke turned to his calling. He spent hours he would have spent at school watching the clock, or thinking day dreams up of a better life, pouring his heart into a song. 

It didn’t have a name, and to Luke it would probably never be read by another soul, but to him it was different. Songs he’d written before had flowed from the strings of the guitar and his own vocal chords. But this one took its roots in the words and thoughts in Lukes head. The lyrics were recorded and condensed from his own thoughts. The lyrics didn’t prevoke the words in his head like they normally did. And it was liberating.

_Another day, of painted walls and football on the TV_

Luke thought of the white reflections of the lights of the TV in the lounge, or the light of his laptop against the bare backdrop of the walls of the room. In the dark, whether he was playing fifa, or playing games in his room, the glare of the screen cast shadows against the darkness. White figures like ghosts, dancing like friends Luke had never had the experience of knowing, in the room. These lights reflecting off the corners and the flat surfaces were simply that, reflections of something real. They were something like his own life, a mirror of something more substantial. Luke felt like these reflections, they had a white shine to them, and if they shone on black background, they would be bright and vibrant and blinding in their brilliance. (The depth of the black suspiciously looked like the pigment of Michael’s hair.) But if these artificial reflections played on anything other than black- on something colourful and lively and something which held life in its vibrancy- they were washed out. Looking more artificial and like something that was only a mere portion of a whole. Luke felt like the white light on a luminous background- washed out and something which hinted at the possibility of being something else. 

_No one sees me_

Luke thought back to the first day of the week. It was only Monday, but it felt like a month ago. Even the week he hadn’t been at school- a week in which he hadn’t had to see the cool porcelain of Michael’s skin and feel the similarly chilly attitude which radiated from him whenever Luke was near- was absent of any interactions with anyone but his mum whenever she delivered him food to his room, but that was nothing new. Luke was used to only having himself as company. He’d grown accustomed to the silence of solitude and the sound of his not so friendly thoughts swimming around in his own head.

_I fade away, lost inside a memory of someone's life_  
But when you spend so much of your time with your own voice lulling you into a mundane existence, you learn to anticipate what that voice is going to say. Luke was reliving memories he’d had before, like when Calum had smiled at him, or when he’d watched Michael and Calum play on the gravel in reception, or how happy he was when he found out he would be going to the same secondary school as his brothers. But when you simply live in these memories, they lose their shine. Their sparkle that made you remember them as memories in the first. Luke had no new memories to live his life in. And it showed. Normal moments where he could sit and try not to look too sombre as he thought and daydreamed of a better life grew tainted with the reality that his life was passing by him while he sat and waited for something to happen. 

_It wasn't mine_

And it was in times like this that Luke realised that all the memories he was living in never really centred on him. They were about people and how people acted in a way that made them memorable. Like, Michael may have been horrible to him, but the look on his face just before he snapped at Luke seemed somewhat normal, and that was an image that Luke lived in. he lived in the memory of other peoples past moments. They weren’t his own moments, and this was Luke. And well, Luke was deemed worthy enough to have people to make his own moments with. 

 

_I was already missing before the night I left_

He tried to think of something, a time where someone had gone out of their way to make him happy, where they had gone out of their way to make a moment with him. And Luke knew he was starting to get repetitive now. All this talk of moments and memories shared with others and not himself. It didn’t make sense really, but Luke didn’t think it made sense to him why he had become so invisible to everyone. It wasn’t like he was actually invisible. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He hadn’t removed himself from anything. People didn’t seem to understand that he only got that vacant, almost empty look in his eyes when no one paid him any mind and he was trying to imagine what it would be like to not feel so vacant and empty. The hazy quality would be gone when someone cast him a second glance, when someone acted like he wasn’t a puppet missing its puppeteer. 

_Just me and my shadow and all of my regrets_

Luke never understood why he was looked over so much by his peers and even by anyone he came into contact with. He could never understand why people thought of him as something that had less of the amount of emotions as everyone else, so he had to be treated with less compassion and emotion than someone would treat another. Why was he so different? He didn’t know what to regret and what to loathe about himself, as to Luke he was just Luke.

_Who am I? Who am I when I don't know myself?_

He was nothing unusual, nothing special. Yet there was something- something he didn’t even know about himself- that made people see him as more of a animal or a pest that was there for the ride than something with emotions and feelings and wants and needs. But if he couldn’t find this feeling or problem with himself that led him to his mistreatment, why would anyone else bother looking for it. Or maybe looking past it and to the Luke that he thought he was. If he couldn’t even find something within himself, why would someone even bother to put the time and effort into helping find it with him. 

_Who am I? Who am I? Invisible_

Luke wasn’t just a single person anymore. He had nothing left that made him Luke so he became someone of a culmination of other people’s memories. He was still a person, but not someone who was explicitly Luke. He looked and thought and spoke and acted like him, but the core of who Luke was as a person, faded and became murky with the fact that Luke wasn’t really anyone. 

 

_Wasted days, dreaming of the times I know I can't get back_

Memories were similar to dreams, and sometimes Luke felt like if he closed his eyes for long enough, slowed his breathing for long enough, hoped and pray and thought hard enough, he could dream of a life better than this. A life where his dreams come true, dreams that to a normal person would hold truth. Because Luke wasn’t wishing for fairy tales and unicorns, it was simple things. Like a friendship, starting the way you would expect any other relationship to start. And bro-hugs in corridors, and friends to hang out with after school. His dreams were realistic and didn’t that make them more wishes than dreams? 

_It seems I just lost track_

Luke tried to lose himself in these dreams. Where the edges of his vision- or his vision in the body of the new and improved and equally ‘not empty’ Luke- faded as his sight tunnelled. It held a dream like quality as his day dreams focused on what Luke wanted so much, that he felt like he could taste it. 

_Looking on as all of life's colours seem to fade to grey_

When he opened his eyes again, everyday life didn’t suddenly appear whitewashed and drowsy. It always looked like that to Luke. A monotony of greys and blacks and murky whites. But he just become more aware of it. He was more aware of how dreary his own excistance was, and it looked even paler in contrast. His life was always washed out, but it just looked even more so when hed spent the time dreaming of what he could have. 

_I just walked away_

It should have been simple, don’t dream of what you cant have. It will only make you want it more. And it will just make it more apparent that you will never have it. But he couldn’t stop himself. It was like a drug. In some way, he knew he shouldn’t do it, as overall it made him more miserable. But for that short five minutes where he was just able to imagine, it was euphoric. 

_I was already missing before the night I left_

When had he finally become this recluse that no one actually thought it weird not to talk to? It was okay to be quiet and not really have many people to talk to, when people acknowledge that. If you were talked about as the kid who had no friends, then at least you were significant enough to be talked about because of it. Luke didn’t even get recoginsed for having no one. 

_Just me and your shadow and all of my regrets_

When had Luke become someone who’s only follower and un-doubtable companion was his shadow? 

 

_Who am I? Who am I when I don't know myself?_

When had Luke lost himself? When had he become someone whose own depths he didn’t understand?

_Who am I? Who am I? Invisible_

When had Luke started questioning what was wrong with himself. He’d never done anything. When had Luke wandered so far down a road that the actions of others played so heavily on his mind that he began to lose himself on its trail? 

 

_Who am I? Who am I when I don't know myself?_

When did Luke feel the need to understand himself through others?

_Who am I? Who am I? Invisible_

When did Luke feel like the only way he could understand himself was through others?  
_Who am I? Who am I when I don't know myself?_

When did Luke feel the need to have others validate his existence as being something willing they would let into their own lives?

_Who am I? Who am I? Invisible_

When had Luke ever felt like he needed to be validated by anyone? 

 

_Another day, the walls are built to keep me safe_

When had Luke built a wall of questions so high above himself, that this wall of insecurities and self hatred was his only protection against the people that were needed to break them. Luke had built mountains and caverns and moats and walls of huge proportions to keep out the people who he need the most. These people he was trying to keep out, were the ones he really needed within. 

_I can't escape, it's too late_

But Luke didn’t have anyone to tell him that, did he? 

* * *

And then Michael’s hair wasn’t completely black anymore.


	5. Black (and blue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair had a blue streak in it, Luke felt like music was the thing stitching him back together; albeit temporarily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii everyone.
> 
> okay first things first I would just like to apologise for how long this has taken me. I have no excuse other than I couldn't bring myself to write and honesty I could blame school but I'm a procrastinator. so sue me. 
> 
> anyway, since the last time I wrote for this fic, I've gotten myself a beta, so shout out to her for catching up with the other chapters of this and also proofreading this part for me. 
> 
> Don't kill me for how long this has taken, but hope this is worth it for the...development in this. anywho- hope you like this and maybe leave kudos or comments as they make me vv happy 
> 
> Enjoy!!

When Michael’s hair had a blue streak in it, Luke felt like music was the thing stitching him back together; albeit temporarily. 

* * * 

Luke didn’t return to school for a week after that. Each day he spent at home, engraving the feeling of the stiff guitar strings into his fingertips, he felt the sickly suffocating feeling leave his bones a little bit more. Ever since Michael had looked at him with such deep seated hated in his eyes, Luke had had this uneasy churning feeling in the pit of his stomach. It belonging in the same place as the slight fuzzy feeling he got when he perfected a guitar riff and the noise bounced off his bed-room walls back to him, and also the warming feeling- like sun warmed honey or marshmallowy hot chocolate- he felt when Calum had offered him his slightly crooked smile. 

The ‘slight-fuzzy-feeling’ resided in the same place as the ‘sickly-suffocated-feeling’ so he tried and tried to drive away the memory of how much venom had dripped out of Michael’s words, with perfect little finger patterns and humming strings. Every time it came out right, there was a momentary reprise in the horrible churning and it felt like a breath of fresh air. When the guitar was not in his hand- besides the fidgetiness of his fingertips- he yearned to reach for the instrument to sooth his own mind. It was like a balm, like the soft scratch of fingers in his hair to sooth away a headache. 

It was strange, even verging on weird that something as simple as wood and some plastic and, well, whatever the strings were made of, could bring such solace to his troubled mind. And it may have been considered stranger, that the song he had spent writing when he was in such a dark place, when there seemed to be no way out of the endless cycle of ‘two steps forward one step back’ that was Luke’s life, was his escape. His getaway place. Because when he strummed the all too familiar pattern- Luke was sure in any other circumstances he would have loathed the song by now seeing as he had played it nonstop since, well, since the sickly feeling started- everything else fell away. He was a non-descriptive boy playing a non-descriptive guitar, whilst singing a song that had such vivid connotations that a whole picture could be painted from its melody alone. 

The words of it may have been melancholy or morbid at the most, but if Luke got so immersed in his head, to escape or just to concentrate, the colours he saw behind his eyes were not pitch black shades, or watery grey, or even dark dark green, but blues and pinks and yellows. Maybe it was a side effect of the ‘slight-fuzzy-feeling’, but to Luke he didn’t just feel the happiness in the pit of his stomach. He felt like he was flying. 

* * * 

Returning back on Monday morning may have just saved Luke’s fingertips seeing as they had even started to bleed by now. (He had even had to steal some of his mums flowery smelling hand cream to stop the cuts cracking every time he touched something). But they did nothing to save him from the feeling of drowning. 

He’d arrived early into school, too early for anyone else but teachers to be stalking the linoleum halls, but just early enough to get in before Calum would- and that would mean Michael- got in for football practice. Barley glancing around himself, only hurrying down the corridors to his locker, ignoring the unnerving sound of his shoes slapping on the floor and echoing around him, he quickly approached his locker. 

Since he’d been up till the break of dawn the night before, haunted by venomous green eyes, and sky black- sky black was the name he’d gone with to describe Michael’s hair, as the way his pale skin reflected of it made the soft strands look almost inky blue, even though Luke knew it was black-, he had decided that the best cause of action to prevent any huge emotional breakdowns in the middle of class/a free period, was to arrive early in the morning to collect his books before Calum or Michael did, and take whatever precautions necessary to avoid both boys. 

To avoid Michael, and the thought left a sour taste in Luke’s mouth, he would have to avoid Calum as well. Michael stuck to the brown haired boy’s side like a leach and one was never seen without the other. Even if it felt like a small weight had been added to the already high pressure on his heart, it was a small price to pay to never feel as small and stripped back as he did by Michael the previous week. And anyway, avoiding the two boys did have its positives. Seeing as Calum was a social butterfly and Michael was his (evil) side kick, their whereabouts were always slightly ambiguous. So Luke drew the conclusion that he could hide in the music suites. 

Along the farthest left side of the school, down one of the older corridors with those square tiled ceilings, was a row of 4 music rooms. All about the size of his bedroom at home, they were padded on all four sides, and even the doors had the same sound-reducing plush on them, when you closed them. With the doors closed, the room became a miniature power house for the person inside, the perfect place for singing, playing, strumming, whatever. The insulated walls provided the perfect acoustics and Luke hated to admit it through fears of sounding narcissistic, but his voice came out crystal clear and his guitar almost hummed like a contented animal when the sound erupted into the room. Each of the four rooms was made to be filled with music, made to be filled with sound and melodies in the same way that Luke needed to breathe. 

So when Luke said he needed to ‘hide’ from Michael and Calum, and the idea that the music suites seemed like the perfect place to go to do so, it didn’t feel like a hardship. People who had those to listen to them, those to talk to them, would have found it weird to take such pleasure in a room only filled with sounds that you made yourself, but to Luke- who didn’t have any such friends- it was the most wonderful thing. To shut himself in the kitted out room, and just be in control of everything that happened in the 20 minutes before school started, for the 25 minutes of break and for the 45 minutes of lunch, was like a little breather from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

When the guitar was in his hands, he didn’t need to stand up straight with his head held high. He didn’t need to worry about people thinking he was invisible or looking straight through him. He could be Luke. Luke the boy who may have found his friend in music, and for that point in time to have his only accomplice being his string board and vocal cords, it didn’t seem that much of a hardship. 

* * * 

By Thursday, each little reprise from school life that Luke spent in the music rooms, felt like a breath of fresh air. When the air was humming with sound, sound that he alone had made, the air seamed fresher, cleaner in a weird sort of way. The breath he breathed in then sustained him till his next fix, and it was as if until he was in the suites again, everything was paler in comparison. 

This was why, by lunch time he felt like he was running on empty. Like an addict slowly going cold turkey when they had no control over it. His fingers plucked strings out in the air, subtly against his leg as he power walked to the left side of the school. This was always the most dangerous of times, lesson change over. Luke had no idea where Michael was and a wrong turn could have him directly in the firing line. The thought terrified him, only pushing his legs that little but harder to reach the far side of the building. 

In his haste, in the frenzy that Luke felt was growing in his muscles, when he threw his bag down on the carpeted floor, and all but lunged for the guitar propped up in a stand, he forgot to close the door properly. All the doors to the suites had seals of the plush sound proofing, and needed to be pushed closed as opposed to left to swing shut themselves. But Luke had been to desperate to make noise and breath in the fresh air, that he forgot the simple task of pressing his palm into the door, leaving a crack along the frame and a wedge of clearance underneath the doorframe. Being down a corridor, no light peaked in through the slit, and the noise outside the door couldn’t notify an already immersed Luke to his mistake. 

Not even the loud slapping or black combat boots forced Luke out of his world of swirling patterns and warm-honey and marshmallowy hot chocolate. 

-

As it turns out, Michael and Calum have completely different lessons before lunch period- Calum on the far left side of the school, in the maths block, and Michael on the top floor doing science. The feeling of not having his best friend glued to his side as Michael stalked towards where he had decided to meet Calum- or being glued to Calum’s side more like, but whatever, - left Michael with the slight feeling of loneliness but it didn’t outweigh the annoyance he felt for his friend at that moment. 

His combat boots slapped along the floor, a rhythmic whack whack whack, and it would have been therapeutic if he wasn’t fuming. For some God forsaken reason, Calum had got it in his head, that it was a good idea for them to starting singing together. And not just singing. The way Calum described it was in a way that Michael thought it sounded like they were bloody performing. To a camera of all things. 

Michael thought all the heavy rock music they both listened to may have may gone to Calum’s head a bit, scrambling his brain until he thought the good was bad and the bad was good. Because really, why did he think it was a good idea to force Michael to waste his time stuck in the music suites at the back of the school? Calum should have known better. Known better than the force him to do something he didn’t want to do, to force him into a room with so much soundproofing that Michael even believed he could hear the voices in his own head – and trust me they weren’t the nicest of voices to say the least – being whispered into the room, he should have known better than to force him to sit behind the lens of a camera where his every little tick and movement was amplified. 

Sure music was his outlet as much as it was Calum’s, but it didn’t mean he wanted to sit down and perform like he was flipping selling himself. He didn’t want to do it, and he made that perfectly clear, even looking Calum straight in the eye so the tanned boy could see the insecurities behind the green in them, but Calum had just beamed at him, clapped him on the shoulder and told him to suck it up. (He told him to suck it up or he would unblock Luke on all of Michael’s social media and follow him on every one of them. Michael had shut up, and did indeed suck it up, much to Calum’s amusement). 

So to say that he was happy to turn into the corridor that held the four music rooms, heading towards the farthest one away from the main corridor of the school, where Calum had told him he would be, would have been a down right lie. But as soon as he did, as soon as he stepped the first few steps, he heard singing. 

He heard a song he had never heard before, sang by someone he was sure he hadn’t heard before. If he had even heard the owner of the voice talking before, Michael was sure he would have gone weak at the knees- and that’s not something that happens often. And it would have even because someone who puts that emotion, or more accurately, effortless emotion, into a song, must have the normal voice of someone who has seen too much and been through too much. The crooning that was reaching Michael’s ears was beautiful, breath taking. The rising of pitch and the variation in intensity carried Michael’s pulse with it, lifting it and dropping it whenever the owner breathed out a line into the air. It was spectacular, like a fireworks show for his ears.

Emotions rushed through him, sorrow because obviously this was a song written by someone who wasn’t in a place anyone would wish to go, but there was something hopeful about it. The chords accompanying the words weren’t as sad as they could have been, they could have been more minor key, more moody and depressing than they were. Yes, there were minor notes in there, but they were balanced with major. Like mud flecked with gold. It was beautiful; the balance between them making you want to cry and making you think everything was going to be okay at the same time. 

Michael was in shock, wanted to push open the door to which he had stopped in front of when he found it was the loudest one he could hear the music from. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t do it. The voice was obviously male, and he couldn’t bring himself to open the door on something so private. Michael may have been in awe, he may have wanted to rush in and gush about how he felt like his heart was soaring among the clouds, but it was too personal. A song so raw, in Michael’s opinion anyway, couldn’t be interrupted. 

It was beautiful, but the singer, or the boy – he still couldn’t process the fact that a boy could convey such emotion- was painting a picture. Depicting a story and you never interrupt an artist, whether they are of words or materials or notes. The story would be ruined, the illusion broken and Michael couldn’t have that. He stood by the door listening and it felt like hours that he stood there, letting the music coming through the creaked open door wash over him in waves. 

Then the song seamed to stop, come to a natural end, not a full stop, but with maybe a ‘…’ at the end. A, as he had said before, ‘it’s gonna get better’ uttered into the breeze. But by the end, it was like the singer had his emotions stripped, laid bare and painted across the walls. He spoke the last line, accent loud and clear. When Michael heard the voice, the not quite husky, yet not quite squeaky voice say the last line, he ran as fast as he could to the end room. 

He crashed into the door, bursting it open with a rough shove of his shoulder. His dramatic entrance alerted Calum to his arrival, and the dark haired boy looked up, startled, from the guitar he had been lazily tuning in his lap and looked at his black haired friend. Michael was breathing heavily, but he hadn’t run that far, and it was because he felt like all the air had been knocked out of him. 

“What’s got into you?” Calum asked, suspicion in his voice, his mind jumping to conclusions of Michael causing trouble and the reason he had come careering into the room was to avoid the wrath of a teacher. 

“I. I just- I…” Michael began but cut himself off of as ‘it’s too late’, echoed around in his head, and his chest heaved. 

“Michael.” His tone was stern, like a scolding mother. “Spit it out.” 

“I just heard Luke singing.” The way he said it was as if all the words were stung together in a continuous breath. 

“Luke?” Calum questioned, confusion across his soft features. 

“Yes, Luke. Hemmings. Luke Hemmings. You know exactly who I’m talking about.” Michael’s tone was anything but soft. 

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you call him Luke and not,” he paused, still smirking and waving his hands around, whilst doing his best impression of Michael’s disgusted voice, “ _Hemmings_ ”. 

“Shut up, Cal”. There was no heat in his words, no fire in his eyes which were cast down. The light on the low ceiling caught the pigment of his hair when it tried to filter in through his bangs, and the blue edition he had added left him with slightly blue tinted vision when he looked through the stream of light. 

“He was amazing.” Michael’s voice didn’t sound like his own when he spoke, but he had said it anyway, and nothing about the statement was contradictory of anything he felt. 

“Wait, what?” There was the edge of disbelief in Calum’s tone, mirrored in his wide eyes. Michael pretended not to hear him, because if he acknowledged what he was saying he wouldn’t hesitate to punch himself, as well as the stupidly quaffed blonde haired boy’s face. 

“Luke. His singing, it was. Or he was. God Calum, he was amazing.” He tried not to think about the high flush in his cheeks, or the look of disbelief on Calum’s face as he slumped against the door to close it, and to support himself. To support himself because as the words left his mouth it wasn’t like a weight was being added to his shoulders, it felt like one was being lifted. All because of Luke Hemmings? What was happening? 

* * * 

Then Michael’s hair wasn’t flicked with blue anymore.


	6. Black (and green)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair had a green streak in it, Luke just wished for someone in which he could call home. Yes someone, because having someone in which you could be anywhere with and still be at home in their arms, is far more beautiful than a simple building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone. so yeah kind of just a filled chapter here. this was meant to have an event happen in it, but I didn't think Michael had spent enough time away from his douchy personality so heres more of Michael being a sap.
> 
> oh and the next chapter is where the interactions begins ;)) get ready for awkward muke coming soon 
> 
> enjoy!!

When Michael’s hair had a green streak in it, Luke just wished for someone in which he could call home. Yes someone, because having someone in which you could be anywhere with and still be at home in their arms, is far more beautiful than a simple building. 

* * * 

Michael didn’t go to ‘practice’ the rest of that week. (Practice was what Calum had started calling the times they met up with the purpose of singing together instead of just mucking around at one of their houses. Only two of these said ‘practices’ had happened so far, the first being the original one and another at Calum’s house the same weekend.) 

Well, by saying that it makes it sound like he stood Calum up and made the Maori boy wait in the music rooms on his own for his non-existent arrival. Michael just decided that he was too busy to visit the rooms at lunch, claiming he had to stay behind for science or some other subject, or that there was some paper he needed to finish, or a piece of research he had to print off for the next lesson. All of which were downright lies, and if the knowing yet slightly smug smile on Calum’s face was anything to go by whenever Michael offered up one of these bullshit excuses, he knew they were lies too.

In reality, Michael couldn’t face up to the fact that if he did walk down the corridor to the music suites, he may here Luke singing again. The sounds he had heard erupting from the blonde’s vocal chords- actually erupting was the wrong word to use for the ease and finesse in which the words had been painted across the room- had stuck with him till the following Monday, and exactly a week later the melody still echoed in his head. 

The image of the other boy bending over the guitar in which he had played with such skill was void to Michael, the door that had been obscuring his view to blame for that, but it didn’t stop Michael’s imagination running away with the idea. It brought up vivid images of long slender fingers sliding across rough metal strings, warm and buzzing from the beautiful playing. Images of how Luke’s hair would flop across his forehead as he bent forward, begging for a hand- Michael would deny the fact he felt the intense need to be the owner of the hand to his grave- to be raked through the light coloured strands, and how it contrasted to the way he would throw his head back to let out a particularly powerful and heart-wrenching line of the chorus, therefore revealing a line of smooth skin at his throat. Michael would never admit the fact that seeing the boy in such a vulnerable state, where everything was stripped back, and he was comfortable enough to share something so raw, was an experience that he craved. 

He would never admit to the fact that on that Monday lunch time, the sound of Luke’s song had resonated so deep inside him that he messed up the lines when he a Calum were recording afterwards, and he would never admit to the way his heart seamed to beat in almost a happy pattern instead of its lazy bored thumping. It wasn’t racing, just pumping with purpose, maybe? But that was ridiculous; the Hemmings boy couldn’t have caused that. 

But what would have been even more ridiculous is even the idea that Michael would admit to the fact that he didn’t go to the music suites not through fear of hearing Luke again and being haunted by his song, but he was more terrified of _not_ hearing him again. What happened if Michael didn’t hear him again? What happened if that was his only chance? If he had been too ignorant to see that that was the spark he could have taken, the only olive branch he could have offered the younger boy, and in his wonderment he had ignored it? What happened if he never understood the meaning behind the words? 

Michael decided to ignore the little voice in his head whispering all of these ‘what if’s’ to him, and listened to the one saying what happened if he did go to the music suites and did in fact here Luke singing again. 

* * * 

Michael was not going to the music rooms to hear Luke sing again. He wasn’t. He was going because he was sick and tired of Calum’s whinging about how Michael had only ever practiced with him once and that was it. He was going because he couldn’t put up with the tanned boy going on and on again about how they couldn’t start a band- yes, he had got it in his head that they were gonna start a band somehow, with no rhythm section- without rehearsing. But mostly he was going to prevent Calum from piecing together that the last time Michael had rehearsed, he had burst into the room with wide eyes and Luke Hemming’s name on his tongue. Because if that happened, if the pieces all slotted together in Calum’s mind, Michael would be done for. 

And that explained why Michael was already packed up as the bell rang signalling the start of break, and was out the door the second the teacher said the class was dismissed. No one spared him a glance as he powered out of the classroom, slipping past all the students talking as they milled out of the classroom, and for once Michael was glad Calum wasn’t in his class to see how eager he was to get to see, um, to get to _practice_ again. 

He slipped down the corridors, even if his heavy combat boots stopped him from weaving in-between the other students so efficiently, and arrived on the far side of school where the music rooms were. Some people were still leaving the rooms their lessons had been in; he had gotten there so fast. The corridor stretched out before him, the rooms on the one side all with the doors mostly shut giving no indication to if there was anyone inside. 

It was not disappointment Michael felt in the pit of his stomach at the fact that one of the doors didn’t have music erupting from it. It was just, um, it was annoyance at the fact that he had made an effort to arrive early, _for the practice_ , and Calum hadn’t arrived. He wasn’t slightly put out that he wouldn’t be able to hear Luke’s raw emotions displayed so colourfully before him, or that he wouldn’t be able to refresh the memories that had been fading in his head. And as he was convincing himself that this _was not_ the way he was feeling, whilst simultaneously taking a few steps down the corridor to the end room, his heart began souring. 

To begin with, the fluttering feeling in his heart was unexpected and seamed without reason. But as soon as he focused on it, it filled his every sense. Warmth spread from the top of his head, gloopy and sticky, falling down and filling and engulfing his limbs like tacky honey in its consistency. It was a warm tingling feeling, almost overwhelming and he had to fight the urge not to smile, because smiling into empty space in the middle of the corridor was not a way he wanted to be remembered. 

But the music that made its way to his ears seamed to bend the air around him until a little bubble surrounded him, amplifying the music just for him. Like a thousand instruments playing the same melody. He didn’t realise in his daze, he had walked to the door where the music was loudest and was leaning over ever so slightly to press his ear close to the crack in the seal as possible. He didn’t stop himself though. 

Luke was singing a new song today, and Michael missed interpreting the words to the verses, and by the time he gained a coherent thought in his brain to think of the fact he should be focusing on the worlds as this was all he was going to get of Luke for a while again, the final chorus was being sung. 

Michael tried, he really did, to ignore the rough timbre to Luke’s, to ignore the sound of the strings as they hummed and twanged when Luke’s fingers no doubly snagged on them in his hastiness, to ignore the part of his brain asking him what if he opened the door to the room, and just listened to the words of the song. 

His limbs felt like they were freezing up, as if the honey surrounding them was hardening, but in a good way. Like the feeling he had gotten as soon as he heard Luke playing again was due to tendrils of some medieval creature or animal that had wrapped around him and held him in place so he could experience the music without guilt, because, you know, if he was stuck there it wasn’t like he had a choice. 

The last two lines echoed in Michael’s thoughts. Mingling with images of all the times he as spited Luke in the past, when he had fired words at the blonde under the pretence of being annoyed, or angry at him. As the guitar faded out, got quitter and quitter, the strums of his guitar got more spaced out and irregular: 

_My heart wants to come home,  
I wish I was, I wish I was_

And almost as an afterthought, in a hasty whisper- rough and deep, identifying the owner of the voice just in case Michael needed reminding: 

_Beside you_

And in that moment Michael wished he could take back every bad word he had ever said, and every horrible thought he had ever had about the blonde boy, and just ask him if he was genuinely doing okay, because Michael had his doubts.

* * * 

And then Michael’s hair wasn’t just black with a green streak anymore.


	7. Blonde #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair was blonde, Luke thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! so I know its been a while since I updated this and for that I'm sorry. its not because ive had writers block because I haven't, ive got no excuse really. 
> 
> anyway, shout out to RandomReaderB who has been pestering me for an update for a while now! Hope this lives up to your expectations and you love it still!! 
> 
> (this is unbetad originally because I wanted to get it out to you guys as soon as I posted it, but will be betad soon!)
> 
> anyway this, I'm not gonna say anything more before I ruin it
> 
> comments and kudos make me vvv happy btw :) xx

When Michael’s hair was blonde, Luke thought his heart was going to beat out of his chest.

* * * 

Michael wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. He wasn’t being discreet in the way his knee would bounce towards the end of his last lesson before lunch. He wasn’t trying to hide the way he would glance apprehensively at the clock on the wall, willing those last five minutes to go that little but faster. He wasn’t hiding the way he packed up his belongings before everyone else so he could be one of the first ones out of the door once the bell rang for lunch. He wasn’t even thinking about the way in which he power walked across the school campus- shoes making thumping sounds on the floor and backpack bumping against his back with force, only stopped from falling off by the singular strap he had over his shoulder being held in his hand- would look to people watching. 

And that was because the only thing he was thinking about was hearing Luke’s voice again. Being able to get those extra couple of minutes hearing the blonde made all the difference. It made it all that sweeter. Somehow those extra stolen minutes sounded better to him than all the time that he heard Luke when he was supposed to be there. And well it normally only took Calum five minutes to make it from his last lesson to the music suites, so if Michael managed to get there before Calum had even left, even better. 

On his stronger days, Michael would laugh at himself. Laugh at how depended he had become on listening to the soft timbre and mellow rise of Luke Hemmings’ (of all people it just had to be Luke Hemmings didn’t it) voice. He would think of who he was, because he was Michael Clifford for God’s sake, he wore combat boots and dyed his hair and wanted an eyebrow piercing and sometimes thought it would be cool to wear eyeliner- the fact he never had the guts to was irrelevant- but in spite of all of that, he was completely and utterly enamoured by Luke. 

To begin with Michael thought it may have been envy. Like, maybe he was so jealous of how amazing and effortless and beautiful and amazing Luke sounded that it resulted in that pounding in his heart and that fuzziness in his head. But the more he listened, the higher the count of times he had spent encased in the bubble that Luke’s voice and his twanging guitar made, the more he realised that this wasn’t some sort of wanting for Luke’s voice. It was wanting for Luke himself. 

Michael tried to fight it, he really did. He was meant to hate the boy! But every single time he treated his mind to the soothing balm that was the sounds that erupted from the boy, images of holding him came into his head. Images of wrapping the blonde boy up in his arms, pushing his long blonde hair out of his face- Michael imagined what it would feel like in between his fingers, most likely soft, fluffy and thicker on the crown of his head than on the front of his fringe- and whispering to him that ‘It’s fine, it’s all gonna get better Luke’. He imagined the way Luke’s hand would fit in his own, if by holding it tight in his palm he could help tighten that string in Luke that always seemed to be unravelling uncontrollably. 

But these were all just dreams to Michael, dreams and perfect ideals. He couldn’t even think of opening the door to the music suite he was now standing in front of that moment. Luke was singing an old Blink-182 song, something sad and sombre and even then despite the tugging of his heart strings to how alone Luke sounded- and it wasn’t because his voice was echoing round a single room- and how Michael only had to push open the door to go and comfort him, he couldn’t. If Michael couldn’t even comfort him, how on earth could he possibly press little kisses to Luke’s hairline and wait a minute. 

Who said anything about kissing? , Michael thought. Was that what he was feeling? All this time?   
The high blush in his cheeks when someone looked at him weirdly when he was giddy with the fact he’d be hearing Luke soon? The way he almost felt guilty and like spewing his guts to Calum like some gossiping teenage girl whenever the boy asked him what he was doing leaning against the door frame of an occupied suite instead of tuning up in their own one? The way his heart beat quickened, and his hands sweated and his fingertips twitched when he could tell Luke’s song was coming to an end, like a drug addict reaching the end of his stash?

He had a crush. But it didn’t terrify him. Sure, he had never been sure of his sexuality anyway. Like who is without experimenting. But he was sixteen by now, and he’d be seventeen by the end of the year. So of course he’d had crushes before. And what he felt for Luke was like that just amplified. Like all the feelings he’d ever had for any girl, held under a microscope, analysed and multiplied by one hundred. It didn’t scare him. So what if he liked Luke, who wouldn’t with a voice that could melt even Michael’s stony heart- well that’s what Calum called it anyway.

Michael had a crush on a boy, which was fine. However that boy was falling apart. So why wasn’t Michael helping him!? He knew how Luke felt, like he was alone, invisible, needing someone, anyone. And Michael wanted to be that someone! He did, he so did. He craved it. He could be that someone for Luke. He could be the person to make Luke see that he wasn’t invisible, that to Michael his voice alone set Michael imagination on fire and his heart racing, without even looking at him. Luke needed someone, and Michael wanted to be that someone. 

All of these thoughts were swimming around in his head, making his hands itch to push the door open. It’s not like he even had to push down on the handle, the door was already open partially like it always was so he just had to add the tiniest bit of pressure and it would open. Luke was singing that song about being invisible now, about not knowing himself, about not being anything. 

So Michael decided to prove him wrong. To prove that any time Michael even caught a glimpse of Luke, he craved to see what Luke actually looked like when he sang. Because Michael knew he sounded like an angel, so he must look equally angelic with so much emotion displayed unknowingly on his face. Around school, Luke looked sombre, down, guarded, with the blues of his eyes behind a veil of murky grey. But Michael wanted to see them sparkle, to see whether they shimmered, or glinted in the sun- because there was a difference- and to see how they would look when he started to realise he was the brightest star in a sky of bleak black and not some invisible comet burning out in the sky. 

He pressed his palm flat on the door, and pushed it open. 

-

Luke’s back ached. His fingers were sore to touch. He shoulders were hunched in on themselves, and his neck was straining over the neck of his guitar. But the words flowing out of him seemed effortless. The amount of times he had sung the song he wrote the day he had ran from Michael and indirectly Calum, were countless and now the words rolled of his tongue like words he’d spoken every day of his life. It was like breathing, a reprise to let his mind go blank as he mindlessly repeated the words. But that made it sound like the words had lost their meaning, seeing as he didn’t even have to think of them anymore. But it was anything but, because they were so ingrained in his memory, it was a mantra that he didn’t have to think of the individual meaning of the words but only the overall feeling of it all together. 

Making music was his way of feeling alive. Awake. Seen. When he was making music there was no need for pretences, no need to put up a front that he was meek and mild Luke. He was everything he wanted to be, whether that was what other people wanted to see or not. And now, alone in the music suite, similarly to every lunch time for the past God knows how long, he felt like he was shining. 

Half way through a cord, halfway through a line, his serenity broke and the light he imagined was emanating from his body, illuminating his every flaw as equally as his every perfection, exploded in bursts of energy around the room. 

“You’re not invisible to me.” 

The peace surrounding him, as thin and pale and as opaque as paper, ripped in half as easily as it would have done if it was in fact paper. Leaving a gaping hole straight through the middle of the bubble he was in and letting all the other sounds which it had been keeping out, overwhelm him. 

He could hear the hustle of the other students rushing around down the music corridor, their raised voices as they shouted to their friends to wait up for them for lunch and the slamming of their lockers as they retrieved their books or dumped their school bags. He could hear the sound of his own breathing echoing in his ears, and the finally dragged out note which had been cut short, when, well when Michael fell into the room. 

“What?” Luke’s voice came out as a terrified whisper, quiet and low and completely in contrast to the way his voice had echoed loudly of the walls moments before, but it wasn’t just the acoustics of the room that amplified his voice around the two of them. Both facing each other, Luke still on the stool with his guitar across his lap, and Michael standing stock with his hand clutching his bag strap with a white knuckled hand, a new sort of bubble surrounded them. One only of their own sounds and movements. Like a tiny glass jar had encircled the two boys and trapped them under it for them alone to share the space. 

He could have sworn he heard the large gulp that Michael took which caused his Adam’s apple to bob as the blonde hair boys watched him. He swore he heard the way Michael’s brain appeared to be whirling on overdrive, his dark green eyes as open to the swirling that was going on inside his head. He even swore he could hear the erratic beating of his own heart mirrored with Michael’s. 

“I see you.” Michael said softly. And he sounded breathless. Like all the air hadn’t necessarily been knocked out of him, but more taken from him without consent. His mossy green eyes stayed fixed on Luke’s ones and his gaze alone had Luke’s hands sweating. Michael had never even looked at him for this long, let alone this intently- his eyes not even flittering around the room to take in his surroundings. 

Luke didn’t know whether to be terrified that Michael was going to beat him up, or even more terrified if Michael _wasn’t_ going to beat him up. “Michael, please, I-“ 

But Michael stopped him. Not shifting his eyes or his combat boot clad feet, or the weight that seemed to hang over them both. He took an intake of breath, looking like he was giving up in a way, and started talking.

“I see you around school, looking like the world is going to come crashing down on you. And I see you getting your books out of the lockers so early in the morning… when you think I’m not in, or that, that Cal is at practice, I see the way you look over to his locker and I sometimes see your watery eyes when you think of how horrible I was to you.”

His face was growing reader and reader as he spoke, but a fierce set determination showed itself in his strong set eyebrows and sharp eyes. 

“And I see the way you try and hide in lessons, shrinking in on yourself, just- just acting like you’re small and irrelevant when you’re not Luke! You’re not! And, and I see the way you hide at lunch, when you come and hide away here! And I can see the look in your eyes now. That ‘is he look right through me again?’ question in your eyes. And, I’m- I’m not gonna do that anymore Luke.

I’ve heard you singing okay? And I can’t just spend my time telling myself that you are invisible to me. Because Luke you should be. And it terrifies me. You should be invisible to me, I should be able to walk right past these rooms when I hear you voice and think nothing of it. But I can’t! I should just think, ‘wow, like, this guy can really sing’ and move on. But Luke, your voice, and how much you feel, it demands attention. 

I can’t not see you, or see the way if people paid you the slightest bit of attention, you’d be under the spotlight Luke. People wouldn’t be able to physically not see you Luke and I can’t either anymore. I can’t not see you and not want to listen to you and, oh God oh God. Luke?” 

Throughout the whole time Michael was speaking, Luke felt like each little word was a jolt of energy straight through his spine. And Michael had said his name, rolling it of his tongue like it was nothing. He had spoken hurriedly, almost like he was trying to get it all out before his mouth decided to clap shut again. The last time Michael had said his name, it was spat with malice right in his face, but now it fell from his mouth as easily as the quick intakes of breath were currently doing now. His green eyes were now open, terrified and wide.

With such a vulnerable look in Michael’s eyes- almost like Luke was the one going to attack him for what he had said and not the other way round-, and the liquid happiness running through his veins, Luke made a brash decision. Discarding the guitar beside him with one arm in his haste, he shot up, was over to Michael within two strides, and then wrapped his arms tight around the boy’s waist. 

Luke hugged the other boy like his life depended on it, fingers clutching at the back of Michael’s jacket, the fabric course beneath his fingers, face in the older boys neck where he could smell the musky scent of Michael’s cologne. For a split second Luke thought Michael wasn’t going to hug him back, that Michael didn’t understand what hearing those words had done to and meant to Luke and that he was meant to brush it off like nothing had happened. But soon Michael arms were around his back, surprisingly small palms to the small of his back and Luke honestly did think he was crying now. 

“Thank you.” Luke uttered in his ear, and Michael tried not to shiver as his breath ghosted over his neck, when he whispered back, “Anytime.” 

* * * 

And then Michael’s hair wasn’t just blonde anymore.


	8. Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair was blue, Luke felt like his cheeks were on fire and that if Michael didn’t stop fiddling with his fingers _like that_ , he was going to lose it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE!!! a little mid week pick me up of two oblivious teenagers, for you.
> 
> I felt like writing so got this out in about two hours, enjoy :) 
> 
> (so far unbetad bcos my betas doing her finals. good luck to anyone else doing exams during this time, whether that's gcses of finals. heres something to take your mind of it)

When Michael’s hair was blue, Luke felt like his cheeks were on fire and that if Michael didn’t stop fiddling with his fingers like that, he was going to lose it. 

* * * 

Luke and Michael said ‘hi’ to each other in the corridors now. And it felt good. For Michael he could stop pretending that he didn’t see Luke everywhere he went, he could actually acknowledge the boy who normally walked around with his head buried under the lip of the folders he clutched to his chest, and he could see the little bit of light blue that peaked through the stormy grey of Luke’s eyes. 

And for Luke, he could witness the way Michael would always pick him out even in the most densely packed crowd- even when Luke felt like the bodies around him were squishing him into this tiny insignificant speck of dust floating in the air. He didn’t feel like he wasn’t that speck of dust when Michael spoke to him, he still felt small an insignificant, bland in compared to Michael’s, Michael’s well everything, but he thought maybe he was one of those specs of dust you see catching the light of the sun when it is shining through and open classroom window. 

Like when the sun shines, and it is so bright you see it casting shadows on the floor, and if you look at its path, you can see those tiny little particles dancing in the sunlight, glinting at you for the merest of moments before the sun leaves again. Luke felt like one of those particles. Small, and invisible and just a nuisance any other time, but when the sun shone, when Michael’s eyes connected with his own, he lit up. 

It wasn’t a romantic thing, (well at least that’s what Luke told himself when he spent too long looking at Michel’s lips), but it felt good to be able to walk down a long corridor, shoes soundless on the linoleum and the sounds of all the other students crashing around their lockers and making plans for the weekend, and for a small soft ‘Hey, Luke’ to break through it all. 

Michael was just always there, lighting up the corridors with his blue hair and loud footsteps and even louder personality and for him to be uttering his greeting in this way, to have it tumbling from his mouth like air or water onto smooth pebbles or something was astounding. It should have been loud and shouty, a bro-type ‘Luke, my man!’ or something equally bro-ish. 

(Who was Luke to discuss what consisted as bro-ish. He’d never had anyone in which he would consider calling bro. He’d said bro too much now; it was starting to sound weird in his head.) 

But it wasn’t. It was quiet and almost- Luke nearly laughed at how ridiculous it sounded to be even thinking the word-, but almost submissive of Michael to lower his voice, even his tone and whisper the words to Luke. It felt nice, and in some ways better than the loud friendly greeting he could have received. 

Because he had seen the way that Michael greeted Calum in the corridors, all hugs with slaps on the back, and ‘What’s up, bitch?’ thrown around. And Michael was different with Luke. He was echoed words, and rosy cheeks and dark fluttering eyelashes. He was soft green eyes, compared to harsh stony ones, and he was hands fiddling with his bag strap. It was different and it made Luke feel warm and special and something of a change to Michael. He felt less invisible because Michael wasn’t like this with anyone and if he was willing to change, even just the pitch of his voice for Luke, then he was something worth being seen. 

* * * 

Luke was starting to feel bad about eating in the music suites. He knew he wasn’t meant to eat in there, and he thought he knew that the music teacher knew he was eating in there. He also thinks that the music teacher knows why he does it, and that’s why he doesn’t make any comments about Luke getting greasy marks on the wood of the guitar or crumbs all over the floor. 

And Luke also knew how annoying it was to want to say something- in his case it would be saying the first hello to Michael in the corridors instead of waiting for the other boy to greet him first through fear of the blue haired boy changing his whole perspective of him- and feel like you couldn’t say it because of ‘extenuating circumstances’. 

So he started to skip days in the suites, maybe once or twice a week, and eat in the library instead. He wasn’t really meant to eat there either, but at least if he sat at the back amongst the older books for classes that weren’t even on the school curriculum anymore, then no one would notice him politely eating a sandwich or something. 

The entrance to the library was along the same corridor as the entrance to the lunch hall, a thin corridor, void of lockers on either side, so normally, unless it was lunchtime, or used as a route for people to get to the library, it was relatively quiet. Like it was now, for instance. 

Luke had stayed in his sanctuary of the music suites till around half way through lunch, and now was heading towards to library, side bag carrying the lunch he would have to eat in relative silence one he pushed open its doors. But as he was turning his body to face the door on the left side of the corridor that lead to the library- instead of the door on the right side leading to the lunch hall with the rest of the students- he heard laughter. 

Echoing down the corridor was the sound of a boy’s laughter. High and giggly and Luke was so gone. The fact he could recognise a simple sound that Michael made from around the corner of the corridor had a blush on his cheeks and he didn’t even realise his hand was still half raised to the door of the library. 

He could be poetic. Describe Michael’s voice or laugh like the sound of twinkling wind chimes, or the smell of breathing in fresh morning air with the sun on your face, or the feeling of waking up on a Sunday with no homework demanding attention or jobs to do. But Luke wasn’t poetic, and he didn’t need to be, because Michael’s voice spoke for itself- pun not intended- and didn’t need frilly language or vivid imagery to describe it. 

Wrapped in his own head, thinking of the way Michael’s voice would sound when he had just woken up in the morning, or how it would be after screaming the lyrics back to the artist that blared through his headphones at a concert, he didn’t realise that Michael was in front of him until he felt the other boy reach out and touch his arm. 

It was like an electric shock, sparks flying from Michael’s palm, to Luke forearm where Michael had greeted him with a soft ‘Hi Luke’ and a soft squeeze of his arm. It was the first time Michael had touched him since they hugged after Michael’s ‘episode’ weeks before , and from the wide look in his eyes, it was as much of a shock to him as it was to Luke that Michael had touched the blonde boy at all. 

Calum stood off to the side of Michael; leaning against the wall close to the lunch hall door- he shot Luke a small smile when they made eye contact- whilst Luke and Michael were still in front of the library door. 

Michael dropped his hand, bringing both of his palms together and begun fiddling with his fingers almost nervously. There was the hint of a blush on his cheeks, and his eyes were cast down but as green as ever. 

“Hey Michael.” And Luke’s voice was stronger than he expected to be when he felt winded from the contrast of Michael’s behaviour. 

“So, like, do you want to come to lunch with me? Um, us. Do you want to come to lunch with…us? ” Michael looked up from under his furrowed eyebrows as he spoke, and Luke was about to implode if he let himself believe that there was a hopeful lilt to Michael’s voice. 

“Uh.” 

“Oh God, I’m sorry. Like you don’t have to if you don’t want to, like at all. Like don’t feel pressured or anything. I just noticed that you’re never in the hall, and like, not-not like I was looking for you or anything, but like you know I just noticed you were never there, and like seeing as were talking now. But is that even what this is, like talking? And I just thought, maybe you’d want to eat with us. Or like me? Maybe? Like if you want to…” 

Michael spoke all in one breath, cheeks getting redder and redder- the blush was spreading down to his neck and Luke wondered if he was a full body blusher and nope, this was not the time for him to be thinking about how he could find out this fact- and Luke did nothing. 

He just starred at Michael, taking in his features and the shine of his eyes and the way his blue hair made his skin look so pale and his lips look so red and his eyes look so green. 

“Okay, so, like I take that as a no. That’s fine, that’s- um, that’s okay. Like I guess I’ll see you around. I’m just gonna…” He motioned behind him to Calum, who surprisingly wasn’t even trying to listen in to their conversation. 

Michael turned halfway, getting ready to leave Luke who still hadn’t said a word since his eloquent ‘Uh’ earlier. And then, Luke even surprised himself. 

He reached out and grabbed Michael’s wrist. (At the contact he swore he felt Michael’s pulse jump beneath his fingers, but details.) He stopped dead in his tracks, and spun round almost as if someone had screamed his name instead of brushing the inside of his wrist. Michael looked from his wrist, to Luke’s hand around it, to the owners open face. 

“I would love to eat lunch with you, Mikey.” Luke didn’t stutter, but his heart did. Michael didn’t sing, but his heart did. Luke smiled, small and pretty, and Michael beamed, big and dazzling. 

Luke dropped his wrist but Michael’s heart didn’t stop humming with the thought of the way ‘Mikey’ had sounded falling from Luke’s mouth. Not even when both boys walked towards the door to the lunch hall, coy smiles on their faces and Calum whacked Michael upside the head, and greet Luke with a soft punch to his arm. 

* * * 

And then Michael’s hair wasn’t blue anymore.


	9. Purple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Michael’s hair was purple, Luke didn’t even realise but his life was starting to look a lot more colourful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look whos back back back   
> back again gain gain 
> 
> helllooo everyone, what a surprise it must be to have an update after nearly a year woooooo  
> its a shocking to you as it is to me 
> 
> I stayed up till 1am to write this so be happy, its mostly proofread but ill check again tomorrow cos I just want this out now, but I'm also gonna beta all the previous chapter cos theyre a mess pft
> 
> BUT HONESTLY IF YOU HAVE STUCK WITH ME THROUGH WHEN I FIRST MADE THIS HELLO I LOVE YOU IM SORRY FOR MAKING YOU WAIT SO LONG

When Michael’s hair was purple, Luke didn’t even realise but his life was starting to look a lot more colourful.

* * * 

“Michael I’m sorry but I refuse to agree with the statement that Call of Duty Zombies is a better co-op game than FIFA. I’m sorry but such blasphemy is something I cannot stand.” Luke cried, his voice above the normal lull of their little trio. He seemed almost pleading, his tone imploring. Michael, as stubborn as a bull stared right back into Luke’s eyes and took pride in the rise he seemed to get out of Luke. (Both of them ignored Calum’s interjection of singing Bring Me The Horizon’s Blasphemy under his breath.) Luke appeared to be completely emotionally invested in the winning of this battle, as if his soul happiness rested on Michael relenting and agreeing. Michael was weak, weak when it came to granting Luke any tiny wish to make him happy, but even he wasn’t weak enough to let Luke win an argument so blatantly. 

Michael let out a sigh. Big, overdramatic and so drawn out the strands of new purple hair in front of his eyes flew outwards a little bit with the puff of air. The sigh almost seemed pitiful. “Luke, Luke, Luke. You have much to learn. My love of FIFA is unparalleled, however the unity of teammates to pulverise as many stupendously unrealistic zombies as possible is a feeling one won’t forget.” 

Calum snorted at him. He may have made a good point, one to which he himself- normally a ‘FIFA is better than all your bullshit kinda guy’- agreed with but, “Those were some awfully big words from you Mike. Swallow a dictionary? A thesaurus maybe?” 

There was a beat of silence from the two boys, affronted by the pause in their ‘heated debate’, but they both turned round long enough to simultaneously mutter “Shut up Calum.” before going back to their conversation. 

The blushes on Michael and Luke’s faces were ignored by the opposite, yet Calum’s smirk was side-splitting. 

-

Ever since the day Michael had, well the nicest way to put it would be to say embarrassingly, asked Luke to join them at lunch, two had become three. It was gradual at first. As Luke had stopped hiding in music suites and libraries to prevent “Locker Verbal Punch Up #2”, the times the three boys bumped into each other were a lot more frequent. So it started off as simple, ‘Hey what are you doing this lunchtime? Oh, nothing? Come with us then!’s, mostly initiated by Calum, as Michael seemed too preoccupied with waxing lyrical, in his head mind you, about how Luke’s eyes sparkled like precious gemstones or some other pretentious crap. Well Calum didn’t know that for sure, but come on really, they’d know each other for years, Calum knew when to tell that his best friend (‘brother from another mother’) was crushing. And crushing hard he was. 

So from every other lunchtime, having awkward lunch meet ups, which always ended up in the lunch hall, it progressed. It was slow work. Luke seemed to jump like a deer at the sound of a gunshot every time one of the guys from another table raised their voice a bit, which compared to the general roar of the hall, shouldn’t have scared him much, or when Calum asked him a question directly. Calum got it the guy was shy, but did he have to look like a rabbit caught in headlights every time he was in a remotely sociable situation. 

Regardless, his confidence grew, he started to ask questions himself, even with a few of them being directed at Michael (no matter what the question was Luke always seemed to blush whilst asking it, but he chalked that down to nervousness, because even as his best friend Calum could admit that Michael was quite intimidating, even if he did speak to Luke in that sweet, soft, whispery sort of voice…). Calum had gotten his number after some spiel about how Calum never knew where he was so they could meet, and as official bro’s now, they should be able to text each other relevant Dog Memes. 

Calum didn’t notice the slight dampness to Luke eyes when Calum had called him his bro. It was silly and irrelevant and Luke knew his behaviour was downright laughable. Bro, a colloquial term, meaning nothing more than friend in slang, but to Luke it meant so much more than that. He didn’t go into it, but he swore he smiled a little wider that day, a girl in his maths classed even looked at him and furrowed her eyebrows a bit as if she’d never seen him before. Maybe a little bit of happiness is all you need to shine enough for others to notice. 

Luke often found Calum and Michael waiting outside of his lessons now, and every time it happened he could tell the shock was clear on his face, as Calum laughed every time. Calum would greet him with a slap on the back most days, and Michael, as ever, said a whispery “Hey Luke” with almost a bashful look most times (until that stopped and the bashfulness was hidden behind his confidence and familiarity with the blonde hair boy.) If they weren’t waiting, a seat was always saved for him in the hall, and honestly that was as good as anything. Sometimes Luke felt like he would burst from how brightly he thought he was shining. 

-

“Whatever Mike, I wash my hands of you.” He waved his hands dismissively at him, tilting his head towards the sky and doing his best to imitate a posh aristocrat talking down his nose at the other. “One day I shall prove you wrong and you shall be forever in my debt.” 

“Oh yeah, Hemmings?” The sting of Michael using his last name still hurt, reminding him of the cold, hard, venomous look Michael had given him at the lockers those months ago, and Michael picked up on the slight shift in Luke’s demeanour. Michael’s facial features softened for a second, but before letting Luke continue to think of how red he had gone in the face, and how spittle flew from his lip when he recited the abuse, Michael continued. “I’ll prove you wrong tonight, ha.” 

Luke froze. His thought out comeback becoming lodged in his throat. “Tonight?” he asked, his voice slipping back into the unsure tone he had tried to lose when befriending the two boys. 

“Oi Oi tonight did I hear? Someone getting some, huh huh?” was Calum’s helpful contribution. He knew what the other two boys were talking about, but he just wanted to poke a jibe at Michael because honestly the UST- unresolved sexual tension—underlying this argument from Michael’s side was palpable. It was as if he wanted to get any form of passion out of Luke, for his lack of passionate advance on Michael. The thought of Luke throwing himself on Michael in some sort of sexual frenzy, made Calum scoff, the irony was hilarious comparing it to the timid Luke, blushing at Calum’s previous statement.

Michael just rolled his eyes, “No you idiot, were coming to yours remember?” he said. 

As Calum opened his mouth to speak, Luke but-in. Although he was interrupting, his voice was back to the introverted vulnerable tone. The two boys winced. “I’m not going anywhere but my own home tonight?” the sentence titled up at the end almost like a question.

“Oh.” Michael eloquently responded. A single syllable, breathed out in the same rush of air that seemed to deflate his shoulders into a slouch and for him to crumble into himself on nervousness. He was back to the nervous, blushy, ‘I’m a six year old with a crush so I’m going to be as awkward as heck’ version of himself when he asked, “Calum, could, maybe, um, Luke come too tonight? Like with us? To the thing? At your house? Just like us two normally but with Luke now?”

The sheer amount of hope in Michael’s tone was almost laughable, as if Calum would say no, as if it hadn’t been his intention all along to invite the boy with them. 

“Sure, Michelangelo.” Calum chuckled. A beaming smile broke out over Luke’s face, and Calum swore if Michael had been looking his way, he’d have fainted. 

Michael’s bravado returned as he slapped Luke on the back, as if to welcome him to some sort of club, before he narrowed his eyes and asked, “Michelangelo?” 

Calum leaned across the table, not too worried about making Luke feel left out by excluding him from the secret, seeing as he was too busy trying to stop the smile nearly splitting his face in half at the prospect of spending the first Friday in years in the company of those who wanted it. 

“Yeah Michelangelo- because you look at Luke like he’s a fucking work of art.” 

(Calum changed his contact name to Michelangelo, and when Michael saw it later that night he nearly, accidently, for no reason whatsoever flushed Calum’s phone down the toilet.)

* * *   
And then Michael’s hair wasn’t purple anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOPE IT LIVED UP TO EXPECTATIONS!!!! :))  
> kudos and comments make me vvvvvvv happy btw

**Author's Note:**

> stay tuned for the next chapter soon :*


End file.
